This year has been rather quiet for the heavy metal community, with many of the major rock and heavy metal bands in the country in the process of putting together albums and EPs.
One such band gearing for the coming year is Fallen Grace, the band’s frontman Sohan Rathnaike gave the Mirror Magazine a low down on what’s been going on in the Grace camp and the band’s plans for this year.
Last year was marked by two defining moments for the band, which included the release of their debut EP titled ‘Rise and Assault’ which consists of a fan favourite “Preach me Dark” and a newer more intense track titled “Putrid Remains". “Rise and Assault is our debut EP which we launched on December 19, last year to coincide with the performances of Nervecell (Dubai) and As I Lay Dying (USA) at the Vihara Maha Devi Park,” said Sohan adding that the tracks recorded at Empyre Studios, and Funeral Studios were mastered by Rogger Schalles (Merlock/Alchemy) and Kasun Nawaratne (Funeral in Heaven/Spleen Saint).
While the EP has become a hit among the local metal community, according to Sohan Fallen Grace signed up with several distribution channels for the circulation of the EP, namely Misery Records, Malaysia, Death Electronic Records, UK and Avantra Records Japan.
Another special event in the band’s calendar last year was their performance as one of the opening acts for Dubai based death metal band Nervecell and Grammy nominated Platinum selling metal band As I Lay Dying from the USA.
“To be honest it did not turn out the way we planned because of the shortcomings. But all in all, it was one of the best and most memorable gigs we’ve ever played and just seeing a crowd of atleast a thousand react simultaneously to your music was a surreal experience for us,” said Sohan.
For those who missed their performance, the videos from the night are available for viewing on their myspace page.
Talking about plans for the immediate future, Sohan said they were planning a one of a kind gig scheduled for March 21 this year. “This will be the first gig that we as Fallen Grace are organizing," said Sohan. “We figured that all this time we’ve been playing at every other gigs and we have gathered enough experience and expertise to do a one-of-a-kind show,” he pointed out.
Sohan also said that once the gig is done, the band will be going off the radar for a while where live gigs are concerned in order to start working on their debut album, which they hope to release this year. The album will be mixed and mastered by Mike Priest of the band Absence of the Sacred (Malaysia).
Talking about his experience in the heavy metal scene in Sri Lanka, he said its picking up and hopes it continues at this pace, "as more and more bands from the region express their willingness to come and play here and invite bands here to visit their respective countries. But the bottom line is that every band has to work together to achieve that since we’re still a young prospect, despite the fact that heavy metal in Sri Lanka holds immense talent and hope in the form of its musicians and diversity.” |
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